A silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material comprises a support having coated thereon a multilayer light-sensitive component composed of three kinds of light-sensitive silver halide emulsion layers selectively sensitized so as to have sensitivity to blue light, green light and red light. For instance, in so-called color printing paper (hereinafter simply referred to as color paper), a red-sensitive emulsion layer, a green-sensitive emulsion layer and a blue-sensitive emulsion layer are usually coated on a support in this order from the exposure side, and further, between or above the light-sensitive layers, an intermediate layer for the purpose of preventing color mixing or absorbing ultraviolet light or a protective layer, etc. is provided.
On the other hand, in so-called color positive films, a green-sensitive emulsion layer, a red-sensitive emulsion layer and a blue-sensitive emulsion layer are ordinarily coated on a support in this order from the remote side of the support, that is, from the exposure side. In color negative films the arrangement of layers is widely varied. While it is generally recognized that a blue-sensitive emulsion layer, a green-sensitive emulsion layer and a red-sensitive emulsion layer are coated on a support in this order on the exposure side, in the case of photographic light-sensitive materials having two or more emulsion layers which have the same spectral sensitizing but different sensitivity from each other, between these emulsion layers there is sometimes an emulsion layer having a different spectral sensitivity, and thus, a bleachable yellow filter layer, an intermediate layer, a protective layer, etc. are provided.
In order to form color photographic images, exposed photographic light-sensitive material having light-sensitive layers containing these kinds of photographic couplers, e.g., yellow, magenta and cyan couplers respectively are subjected to color development processing with so-called color developing agents. At color development, oxidation products of aromatic primary amines cause the coupling reaction with couplers to form colored dyes. In such cases it is desirable to use couplers which have a good color forming property, that is couplers having a coupling speed as high as possible and providing a high color density within the limited developing time. Further, colored dyes formed are requested to be clear cyan, magenta and yellow dyes of less undesirable secondary absorption in order to provide color photographic images having excellent color reproducibility.
Moreover, it is desired that color photographic images formed have good preservability under various conditions. Such conditions of preservation include, for example, preservation in a dark place subjected to the influence of humidity or heat, and light irradiation by sun light or a room lamp, etc. Not only discoloration or fading of color images but also yellowing at white background areas are extremely severe problems.
In order to fulfill the above described requirements for color photographic light-sensitive materials, couplers play an important part as color image forming agents. Therefore, many proposals on modification of coupler structures have been made to improve such properties. As magenta couplers which are particularly important in view of visual sensitivity, 5-pyrazolone derivatives have hitherto been dominantly employed. However, color images formed from these pyrazolone couplers have undesirable absorptions in the blue light region and the red light region in addition to the desired green light region, and thus they do not have satisfactory performance. Further, since 5-pyrazolone derivatives are apt to cause yellowing with light exposure or under high humidity conditions, they are insufficient in view of image preservability.
On the contrary, the magenta couplers represented by the general formula (I) described hereinafter are excellent couplers since color images formed therefrom show a good light absorption characteristic and little yellowing in white background areas. However, these couplers tend to cause a decrease in the sensitivity at the time of development and such a tendency increases when a coating solution containing these couplers is allowed to stand for a long time during the production of photographic light-sensitive materials or the photographic light-sensitive materials after coating are preserved for a long period of time. Therefore, this is a severe problem when using these couplers in practice.